The 2018 Winter Olympics: Closing Ceremony Pt.8

A continuation of Part 7; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/the-2018-winter-olympics-closing_2.html

Farewell Snowflakes:

That is the official title of this sequence.

It began with the five Childlike Ciphers of the Wu Xing from the Opening Ceremony returning to the arena. They were carrying with them snowglobes.

They were followed by a massive wrapped giftbox. When it had arrived in the centre of the arena the giftbox opened to reveal a giant snowglobe.

These snowglobes were a big part of the RoK's pitch to win the rights to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. As part of their bidding process they handed out many of them to delegates.

Performers or stewards in white cloaks formed a circle around the outside of the arena floor. They too were carrying snowglobes. The shape they formed was that out a snowglobe.

In the centre of the arena a video sequence was projected. It was dedicated to the idea of the Olympic flame, the journey it goes on and what is achieved throughout the games.

This video sequence was presented as if being broadcast on multiple TV screens. This obviously promotes discussion about how the games will be broadcast going forward. Including things like Internet streaming including on the IOC's own; "Olympic Channel."

As the video sequence ended all these TV screens showed what looked like a testcard. This promoted discussion about the sort of battle for eyeballs the Olympics face in a media landscape with so much choice.

I don't have the viewing figures for these games to hand. But in the US they're talking about it being the least watched games ever. Particularly in the crucial 18 to 34 year old market which advertisers utterly obsess about.

I guess Snowflake millennials just aren't interested in the Olympics. Perhaps they find it triggering. Or perhaps the people who believed in Black Lives Matter (BLM) think the Olympics is about sport.

Lights then drew us up from the arena floor to where the Olympic Cauldron stood.

That Cauldron of course resembles one of the "Martian War Machines" from the 1897 novel; "The War of the Worlds" by H.G Wells.

In 1938 Orson Welles produced and directed a radio dramatisation of The War of the Worlds. This is widely recognised as the greatest Fake News hoax in US broadcasting history.

Or at least it was going into the games. The US' place on the medal table now seems to represent where Orson Welles' broadcast now stands in the all time list of Fake News hoaxes in US broadcasting history.

At the midway point of the games the US was languishing in fifth. The US continued to languish there until the last Thursday (22/2/18) of the games. They were then elevated to their finishing position of fourth by the awarding of two surprise Gold Medals.

The first of these came in the Women's Ice Hockey where the US defeated Canada in a penalty shoot-out.

In 2017 the US Women's Ice Hockey team refused to participate in the World Championships unless they were paid the same as the men's team. Made up of players from the US National Hockey League (NHL). Eventually they won their equal pay dispute.

At the 2018 Winter Olympics the NHL has decided that it's too profitable to suspend its season for the Olympics. Therefore most of the World's top Ice Hockey players have been absent depriving the Olympics with a large source of revenue.

Therefore there was a lot of support for a US women's team prepared to stick it to the NHL.

Questions of where the money will come from to pay the women will have to come later.

Also while the Final between the US and Canada was taking place there was something of a background event.

The RoK is an extremely technologically advanced nation. It is a nation that is also technically still at war with its northern neighbour the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North).

As a result the topic of "Soft Power" in the digital age has been a major theme of the games. The hosts even staged a Cyberattack during the Opening Ceremony to promote discussion about this topic.

On Thursday (22/2/18) - Wednesday (21/2/18) in the US - the US broadcaster CNN staged its own Cyberattack on Twitter users.

This took the form of a Town Hall style debate on the topic of gun control. In was organised in the wake of the February 14th (14/2/18) shooting at the Marjory Stoneman High School in the Parkland area of Florida. It was advertised using the Twitter hashtag; "#StudentsStandUp."

I hate to break it to you but CNN's social media accounts are automated. These infamous "Bots" that have been talked about so much in the US Democrats claims of Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

During the Town Hall debate CNN's bots Tweeted out pretty much everything that was said during the debate. Not only that but they Tweeted out the same messages on both the same accounts and separate accounts such as their main account, their politics account and their breaking news account.

This was done in an effort to get the #StudentsStandUp hashtag trending on Twitter. In order to give a false impression of how popular CNN's own political bias actually was.

The effect of this network of CNN bots or "botnet" if you like on Twitter users was a sort of Cyberattack. Similar to a Denial Of Service (DOS) attack.

Essentially the effort of loading all these duplicate Tweets each with images, videos and hashtags sucked up memory causing Twitter to slow down for individual users and even causing some computers to crash.

This sort of tactic is sometimes known as a; "Twitter Bomb."

Just the day before Twitter announced that they would be cracking down in exactly this type of behaviour. Accounts and users engaging in it would find themselves banned in what has been dubbed the; "#TwitterPurge"

As always CNN were totally lacking in self-awareness as to their actions. People have learnt that when CNN are doing a Town Hall style event you just Mute the account(s) in advance.

However on this occasion someone decided to make a talking point of it. By chucking actual bombs - hand grenades - at the US Embassy in Montenegro.

These muffled rumours of a bomb attack on a US Embassy during the Women's Ice Hockey Final may well have made Canada feel overly sympathetic towards their opponents.

Then of course NATO member Canada had it pointed out to them that Montenegro has been a NATO member since June 2017.

Canada then swiftly apologised.

They allowed the US men's team to beat them in the Curling semi-final. Curling was introduced to the Olympics in 2006. Since then pretty much every Curling Olympic Gold Medal has been won by Canada.

Curling is a sport centred around trying to slide things called; "Stones" into something called a; "House." There is even an Olympic themed episode of the US TV Show; "The Simpsons" where Marjorie discovers she's very good at Curling.

So I think we all know what the US' main "Stoneman" John Schuster's new nickname is going to be.

Curling is a painfully dull sport. So dull in fact it actually has a rule called; "Shaking" which allows a team to concede because they've suddenly realised just how dull it is.

So by allowing the US into the Curling final Canada was providing a very big stage on which Marjorie Stoneman could concede the futility of it all.

However in that final the US faced Sweden who allowed them to win. Giving the US a further Gold Medal.

Recently US President Trump suggested holding a military parade to mark the centenary of the First World War on November 11th 2018 (11/11/18). This was met with consternation by certain sections of the US media.

Therefore I think it is fair to assume that a lot of Americans don't know that the history making First World War ended on November 11th 1918 (11/11/18).

Those people aside though I think it is widely known that the Second World War began in 1939. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

What I think though is less well known is that while Nazi Germany was invading Poland Nazi Sweden was invading Finland. This became known as the; "Winter War."

Sweden lost that war and adopted a position of neutrality from then on. This meant that it has not been forced to face up with its shameful past in the same way that Germany and Japan have been forced to do.

It also means that Sweden have seethed over their defeat by the Russians and have been looking for revenge ever since.

Throughout the Cold War and beyond this has taken the form of Sweden's intelligence services mounting Soft Power operations against Russia. Specifically through a network of 'Human Rights' 'Charities' known collectively as; "Human Rights House."

So when the US overthrows Ukraine's government during the 2014 Winter Olympics. Well then Human Rights House are on hand to start rumours of Russian soldiers being killed in Ukraine.

When Georgia starts a war with Russia during the 2008 Summer Olympics. Well then Human Rights House are on hand to claim Russia started the war by committing Human Rights abuses.

When Islamist terrorists attack a school in Beslan murdering at least 334 people. Well then Human Rights House are there to claim the Islamist terrorists are entirely innocent. The deaths are simply Putin's fault.

Probably Sweden's intelligence services biggest operation to date occurred during the Balkan Wars of the 1990's which saw the break up of Yugoslavia. Eventually creating the nation of Montenegro.

This is really a big topic to get into.

However Croatia and Yugoslavia were on course to repeat Czechoslovakia's famous; "Velvet Divorce." This peaceful solution though would have left Yugoslavia largely intact and still allied with Russia.

So the NATO nations started the Balkan Wars to tear Yugoslavia apart in order to make sure their rather than Russia influence dominated the region.

Sweden's contribution to this effort was to accuse Russia of Islamaphobia backing Serb forces in things like the Srebrenica massacre. Then they recruited Russian Muslims to carry out things like the Beslan massacre and the Chechen War.

This strategy forced Sweden to put its money where its mouth was. In order to sustain allegations of Russian Islamaphobia Sweden was forced to take in tens of thousands of Balkan Muslim refugees.

Over the ensuing 20 years those Balkan Muslim refugees have created ghettos in Swedish cities. These have created extremely violent so-called; "No Go Zones"

People talk about the US' levels of gun crime. In Sweden's No Go Zones the weapons of choice are hand grenades and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's).

US President Trump of course has been condemned by certain sections of the media and Twitter users with the hashtag; "#LastNightInSweden" for acknowledging that Sweden's ghettos exist.

So no. I don't think Men's Curling Gold was a medal the US' Marjorie Stoneman really wanted to win.

A point reinforced when at the medal ceremony the US team were actually handed the wrong medals.

The act of drawing our attention from the arena floor to the Cauldron was intended to remind people that the Para-Olympics are still to come.

Between the arena floor and the Cauldron stands a steep ramp. During the Opening Ceremony torch bearers had to climb this ramp to reach the Cauldron. To aid them steps suddenly appeared from within the ramp.

This was a reference to the 2016 Summer Para-Olympic Opening Ceremony. There a wheelchair using tourch bearer was faced with steps on his way up to the Cauldron. Suddenly a ramp appeared from the steps to make the Cauldron wheelchair accessible.

Quite how they're going to do the Cauldron lighting at the 2018 Winter Para-Olympic Opening Ceremony remains to be seen. Theirs is the sort of ramp ski-jumpers launch themselves down. Not the sort wheelchair users push themselves up.

Finally the Cauldron was extinguished. As is IOC protocol.

Rage On: 

Following the dying of the light the Closing Ceremony ended with a raging house music party.

This was DJ'd first by the South Korean DJ Raiden. He then handed over proceedings to world famous DJ Martin Garrix.

By design this sequence was just one messy party that the athletes were encouraged to join. So there was really no political dimension to it whatsoever.

I should point out though that Martin Garrix is Dutch.

On July 17th 2014 (17/7/14) Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot-down over Ukraine.

The US immediately said that it had electronic evidence proving that Russia had fired the missile that brought down the aircraft. They strongly implied that this was Russian revenge for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 during the 2014 Winter Olympics held in Russia.

The US used this as an excuse to impose further sanctions on Russia. Sanctions which by an amazing coincidence hampered Russia's fight against ISIL and Al Qaeda in Syria.

Flight MH17 originated in the Netherlands. As a result it fell to the Dutch to conduct the investigation. Probably a job that absolutely nobody wanted.

The Dutch took the position that they are a nation that values the truth above all else. So they commendably played the investigation straight simply laying out the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Dutch investigation did not explicitly accuse the US of falsifying electronic evidence against Russia. 

However it did conclude that it was impossible to show who had fired the missile. Strongly implying that they were not treating the electronic evidence produced by the US with any degree of credibility.

It went on to conclude that the main cause of the crash was the decision by Ukrainian Air Traffic Controllers (ATC's) to fly a civilian plane into a warzone. A warzone where planes were being shot down on a regular basis.

At the time Ukraine's ATC's - like the rest of the country - were under the command of the US' CIA spy agency. With then CIA Director John Brennan proudly visiting Ukraine in April 2014 the US was making no attempt to disguise this fact.

Efforts to bring criminal prosecutions in the MH17 case have stalled. As the Dutch wait for the US to hand over the CIA officers who were directing Ukraine's ATC's at the time.

The Netherlands have been engaged in their own Russian Aggression scandal of late.

On February 13th (13/2/18) Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra was forced to resign. He'd claimed he had evidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring that he wanted to create a Greater Russia in Eastern Europe.

Halbe Zijlstra was found to have faked that evidence.

On Friday (16/2/18) US Special Prosecutor Mueller announced that he was indicting 13 Russians based on electronic evidence of interference in the US 2016 Election.

The US' NATO partners then queued up to condemn Mueller for faking further electronic evidence as part of his Fake News Hoax.

On February 20th (20/2/18) Mueller took steps to clarify the tenability of his position.

He announced charges of falsifying evidence against Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan. These relate to Mueller's case against Paul Manafort and Richard Gates. That case relates to tax evasion in Ukraine dating back to 2012.

In that context Martin Garrix playing his song; "Together" featuring lyrics such as; "A change in the wind is blowing" seems to carry some significance.

I think everyone who'd been involved in either ceremony joined the party. 

This included the bird that appeared in the; "Meet the Cipher" sequence of the Opening Ceremony. At the time there was debate as to whether this was Vermilion Bird - one of the Four Guardians - or the Fenghuang which is considered the master of all birds.

This reappearance allowed us to confirm that it was indeed the Fenghuang. Initially the Fenghuang was divided into male birds the; "Feng" and female birds the; "Huang." However male and female were unified into one bird which is both male and female.

Hence why the bird used in the ceremonies had a bird's body and a male human head.

The broadcast of the Closing Ceremony ended with the traditional big fireworks display.

However the party continued within the arena and no doubt spilled out into the athletes village as the night went on.

This along with the reference to the Dylan Thomas poem reminded us that although this broadcast has ended the party is not over. 

The Para-Olympics are still to come. 

22:05 on 3/3/18 (UK date).